Saturday, August 8, 2015

Agreements for Smoother Sailing

For many of us, the school year is about to get underway. If you’ve had expectations for coaching in place in the past, you can smoothly step back into old routines. But if coaching is new for your school or there has been confusion about the coach’s role, a principal-coach agreement might make for smoother sailing in the year ahead.

A partnership agreement between principal and coach helps to define the working relationship between the coach and the principal and outlines expectations for the coach’s work. Because the partnership between a principal and coach is crucial to success (Wren & Vallejo, 2009), having a shared understanding of the work at the outset of the school year can set a tone for inquiry that makes coaching effective.

A principal-coach agreement might consider the following:
*How and when will the principal and coach communicate?
*How many and which teachers will the coach work with? (preferably all!)
*What is the scope of the coaching work? (subject areas, topics, etc.)
*What are the coach’s roles? (modeling, co-planning, data discussions, etc.)
*How will time be made in the teachers’ day for coaching work?
*How will confidentiality in the teacher-coach relationship be maintained?
*How will we measure the effectiveness of the coaching work?
*What resources are available to the coach?

Codifying these expectations removes the fuzziness that sometimes surrounds a coach’s role. Once you’ve arrived at agreement about these important ideas, plan for how this information will be shared with teachers. When the principal and coach model a collaborative relationship, the tone is set for similar collaboration as coaches and teachers undertake their shared work.


This week, you might want to take a look at:

Letters from home:  Letting family & friends teach us about students:



The Bedley Brothers podcast on collaboration:



Coaching to model the GRR approach:



Retelling rubric for themes and ideas:



A lesson plan for using FQR think sheets to respond to non-fiction:



Assessing students’ understanding during book club using “Think Sheets”:



That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!


No comments:

Post a Comment